29 Sept 09 - Florence, Alabama Parent
Files Constitutional Challenge to Alabama Supreme Court Opinion
On September 11, 2009, the Alabama Supreme Court issued a ruling in Davis v. Blackstock, in an appeal of a child custody case involving the mother and father of a seven year old daughter.
On September 25, 2009, the father, Mark Davis, challenged as unconstitutional how the Alabama Supreme Court allowed a trial judge to decide the “best interest of the child” without any evidence Davis is an unfit parent who has harmed his child.
“ Davis' constitutional challenge could have a direct and immediate impact upon the thousands of parents and children subject to custody orders in Alabama," stated Holly Wales, State President of the Alabama Family Rights Association.
Davis questions the authority of Alabama judges to take away parental rights in most custody cases. Davis argues as a fit parent, he is legally equal to the fit mother, and for that reason he is entitled to equal time with his daughter under the Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. and Alabama Constitutions.
Davis and his former wife, Tonya Smith Blackstock, were divorced by a
Tennessee court in 2002 when their daughter was an infant.
Since 2003, the child has thrived under an equal-time Tennessee court order, alternating four consecutive days at a time with each parent. This alternating equal-time schedule protects the child’s relationship with each parent as required by the Equal Protection Clauses of the U.S. and Alabama Constitutions.
But in 2006, an Alabama trial court
judge Ned Mike Suttle changed the Tennessee courts’ equal-time parenting plan, giving the mother
custody of the child 286 days per year, and the father custody of the child 79
days per year.
Such limited father-child parenting time is unconstitutionally discriminatory. Davis claims the lopsided custody is
unfair and is needlessly hurting his daughter’s relationship with him.
The father questions why the state of Alabama thinks he is not qualified to be an equal parent in his little girl’s life.
Constitutional law attorney Stanley Charles Thorne said, “This is an interesting case for a Constitutional challenge because the Tennessee courts and Alabama courts each looked at essentially the same facts, but reached radically different results using the best interest of the child standard.”
U.S. Constitution, Section 1, the Fourteenth Amendment
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
Alabama Constitution, Section 13, Courts to be open; remedies for all injuries; impartiality of justice
That all courts shall be open; and that every person, for any injury done him, in his lands, goods, person, or reputation, shall have a remedy by due process of law; and right and justice shall be administered without sale, denial, or delay.